Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

 Another year. Another Fandom Fest has come and gone. Each year Fandom Fest proves why I come back. My books sell well there. I get cool pictures of cosplayers. Catch a glimpse of cool stars of yesteryear and maybe some doing well still.

This year Stan Lee didn’t eat my food.

This year there was actual hardware handed out at the film festival awards ceremony.

And I sold a lot of books and told a lot of people about Letters to Daniel.

I also had the Letters to Daniel screenplay in competition as a finalist. And the zero budget proof of concept documentary that was born from this blog.

Film festivals are notoriously political and you have to run a campaign to win. For me having both projects in competition was incredibly meaningful to me. Fandom Fest was my first Con event. My first screenplay win. I was plugged into a great local writers community.

Which if I have to say anything Stephen Zimmer has championed us writers in the face of some withering opposition. That being said it was Ken and Myra at helm accepting my film and my screenplay.

So not only did I campaign on line. I started up my Kickstarter campaign for the dramatic film around the same time. So Letters to Daniel and Fantasmagorical became work for me. There are times when you need a guardian angel to protect you and to see you through. In this case my work.

Letters to Daniel, as you know is an intensely personal project. It’s really not about you. It’s about me and my journey and where it takes me.

And this weekend it took me to a lightly attended awards ceremony.

It’s funny, as I said in the first letter we don’t know each other. But I can say know each other’s work.

The documentary and project on Kickstarter got a lot of exposure at the Fandom Fest. I had people again tell of how others they knew had bipolar disorder or that they had bipolar disorder. There was a young girl suffering from anxiety and it was a big deal for her to be at such a large and overwhelming event. I had one copy of Letters to Daniel the short memoir. I just gave it to her. I hope she finds a kinship in those pages that allows her to grow and help someone else the way that your work helped me.

But back to the festival and guardian angels and such.

I found myself sitting with my best friend Missy in hopes that there be some recognition. You see, I’m competitive I like to win. But especially with this project because of the message it has to give to everyone. This blog is the root of everything that has come after. The book, the first documentary, the second documentary, the screenplay, and now hopefully the feature film from that screenplay.

Of course as always I tend to ramble in these things. So back to 1PM Saturday. I found myself surrounded by a very light crowd. There were a lot of awards handed out. None of the Best of Fest winners were present. Dude, you entered your film. You must believe in it. Come support it.

Obviously, I don’t have the production value to win a film festival straight out. They only awarded one screenplay award. Missy and I didn’t win that. Our friend Pam a finalist as well, didn’t manage to snag that one either.

One of the last awards given Honorable Mention was for the documentary category. LETTERS TO DANIEL WON! It’s quarter to one in the morning and I’m STILL wearing the medal. Then it was home, dinner, and desert. And late tonight, wouldn’t you know it Casino Royale was on, the movie that inspired the title to this blog and everything that’s come after.

I gave a crap acceptance speech but really I was not expecting, just really wanting it. Your best work has indeed inspired me to mine.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle